


An Immortal Halloween

by alpacamyhedgehog



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Halloween, Implied Mortinez/Jenry, Mild Gore, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 01:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3362801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacamyhedgehog/pseuds/alpacamyhedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Abe hosts a spooky dinner party, Henry is flabbergasted, and a Mysterious Person appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Immortal Halloween

It’s October 31st, and Henry hates Halloween. He’s spent most of the day dodging ghosts and goblins—or at least all things related to the holiday. Unfortunately for him, Halloween is hard to avoid. Pumpkins perch outside row houses and apartment buildings. Costumed mannequins leer out of shop windows. Bowls of candy corn and chocolate bars in orange wrappers appear on office desks across the city.

He walks toward home at the end of the day with his scarf wrapped more closely around his neck than usual, trying to shrink into the safety of his coat.

Hours earlier, Lucas had tried to tempt him into a festive mood by casually slapping a ghost-shaped window cling onto the glass wall of Henry’s office. Fortunately, Henry had caught him in time with a glare that made Lucas stop dead in his tracks.

“Take that thing off, Lucas,” he’d growled.

“Aw, c’mon! Your office needs some holiday cheer.”

“Save the cheer for Christmas. Cartoon ghosts have no place in a morgue.”

Lucas had been about to protest, but he thought better of it when Henry shot him another look. He peeled the ghost off the glass and skittered away.

Now Henry sighs. He’s almost home, and he’s ready to spend a quiet evening in his lab with a cup of tea. He’ll let Abe deal with the trick-or-treaters.

When he opens the shop door, it only takes a split second for him to realize that something is wrong before a net of spider webs falls from above the doorway and hits him in the face. He yells, flailing, until he realizes the webs are fake.

“Happy Halloween!” Abe crows from behind an antique dresser and shuffles toward him.

“What—is—this?” Henry mutters, frantically brushing cobwebs and plastic spiders out of his hair.

The shop is a wreck. More fake spider webs festoon every corner of the shop. A witch’s hat graces a nearby table. Bloodstained doilies litter the furniture. A slightly smaller-than-life plastic skeleton hangs from the ceiling near the cash register.

“Like it?” Abe flicks out the lights. Orange, purple, and green Christmas lights cast an eerie haze across the shop.

“That’s utterly disturbing,” says Henry. He moves toward the plastic skeleton, which is glowing pale green in the dark, and lifts one of its bony hands. “Not to mention disturbingly inaccurate. The metacarpals are far too short, and the distal phalanges are missing entirely.”

Abe sighs and turns the lights back on. “Psssh. I knew you wouldn’t be happy about all this. You hardly let me go trick-or-treating when I was a kid! Still, you can’t deny an old man a bit of fun. Besides—all this is for the party tonight.”

“Party?” Henry jerks away from the skeletal hand. “What? No!”

Abe shrugs dramatically. “Well, I can’t cancel. I’ve already invited our guests, and they’ll be here soon. In fact, they’re probably putting their costumes on now.”

“Costumes?!”

“What’s a Halloween party without costumes? Plus, I’ve already picked out a costume for you. Don’t worry, it’s simple.” He shuffles away into the back and returns with a deerstalker. “All you have to do is keep your coat and scarf on and wear this.”

Henry groans. “These went out of style ages ago. Decades before you were born. This is as tacky as—as—that thing over there.” He gestures toward the avocado-colored couch that was gathering dust in the far corner of the shop.

“What? You’re supposed to be Sherlock Holmes. You love that kind of stuff. Mysteries and all that,” Abe says, wagging his eyebrows and wiggling his fingers. “My costume’s almost finished. That’s what I’ve been working on now. I’m going to be Han Solo.”

Abe keeps talking, but Henry isn’t listening anymore. He clamps the deerstalker on his head absentmindedly while staring at the plastic skeleton.

“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun! Come help me set things up for dinner.” Abe drags Henry into the next room, where he has decorated the credenza and a dining room table even more ghoulishly, if possible, than the main shop.

Henry’s mouth drops open as he surveys bloodstained tablecloths, cobweb-swathed candelabra, and fake spiders and green plastic fingers scattered everywhere. A hidden fog machine cranks out a fine mist that winds its way throughout the room. “What have you done?”

Abe smirks. “Don’t just stand there! Bring the food in from the kitchen while I finish my costume.”

A few minutes later, Henry walks through the shop with a smoking punchbowl.

“Abe?” he calls. “What’s in this punch?”

“Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Fruit juice. Ginger ale. Something a little stronger than ginger ale.”

“No, I mean, why is there dry ice in the punch? Where did you get that?”

“Gives it a nice atmosphere! I found it in your lab.”

“What?! I needed that!”

“Well, you weren’t using it. You can always get more. And what do you use that stuff for, anyway?”

“For…for…for science,” Henry sputters.

Abe stands up from behind the dresser. He’s wearing a frayed black vest that used to be Henry’s over a white shirt. “Now where did I put that…Oh, yes, here it is.” He pulls out an aging pistol from one of the dresser drawers and waves it in the air. “Don’t worry, Princess Leia: I’ll save you!”

Henry shakes his head. “You’re incorrigible.”

Abe helps Henry set up the rest of the food, and they’re almost finished by the time the first guest arrives. Abe has invited over several of his own friends, along with Jo and Lucas.

When Lucas comes in, he’s dressed as classic Batman.

“Nice costume, kid,” Abe says to him.

Lucas grins and eyes Abe’s outfit with approval. “Hey, you too!”

A few minutes later, Jo arrives.

“Ah, Sherlock,” she remarks when she sees Henry wearing the deerstalker. “That’s perfect for you!”

He surveys her long black dress, hat, and green face. “I wouldn’t have guessed you would choose to dress as a witch.”

Abe breaks away from a conversation to jab Henry in the ribs. “Oh, get over it, young man. You never lived through the Salem witch trials.”

Slightly baffled, Jo turns back to Henry. “Well, I’m supposed to be Elphaba, from Wicked. I’m a bit of a fan.”

“Oh, yes. Idina Menzel. She has a lovely voice.”

“So if you’re Sherlock, what does that make me? Watson?”

“Actually, you would be Inspector Lestrade. A much more intelligent, much prettier Inspector Lestrade.”

“Don’t hit on me, Henry. That’s weird.”

She’s smiling, and he can’t tell if she’s joking or not. He shrugs. “I am not hitting on you. I am stating a fact.”

Jo’s smile spreads wider. “Well, in that case, I accept your compliment. Let’s get something to eat.”

Everyone has filled their plates and sat down to eat when the bell on the shop door rings one more time.

Abe looks up from his food. “I don’t think we’re expecting anyone else.” He gets up and shuffles out to see who it is.

“Oh,” everyone hears him say from the other door. “Oh. Oh. Well, welcome. Come on in.”

Up until now, all the guests have been calmly murmuring amongst themselves, but when a shadow appears at the door, they collectively glance up and gasp.

Standing next to Abe is a very tall man, well-groomed from his gleaming dress shoes to his tailored suit to his neatly-trimmed neck.

Yes, his neck.

He holds his head in his both his hands. As the guests stare in not-so-polite horror, a drop of blood falls from the base of his neck and splashes on the floor.

Henry starts and begins rising from his seat.

Abe is the first to break the silence. “Henry, would you pull up a chair for our guest?”

Once the headless man is seated, he smoothes a spot on the tablecloth in front of him and sets his head down. His dark eyes scan the faces of the startled party guests. He smiles graciously and gestures for them to continue their conversations.

“Whoa, great costume, man,” Lucas mutters, and the tension eases somewhat throughout the room.

Privately, each guest thinks it should be unsettling to be at a party with a headless stranger, let alone eat with a headless stranger—even if it is just a costume, after all. But they are wrong. He has an oddly calming presence, and the atmosphere in the room gradually returns to normal. Even if the man does not eat anything, he laughs and talks quietly with his neighbors. Everyone is appropriately impressed, and some of the partygoers exchange theories on how the costume works.

Henry and Jo sit at the opposite end of the table, and throughout the evening, Jo notices that Henry is more distracted than usual. Occasionally, she catches him staring at the headless man, and once, she heard him say under his breath, “That can’t be possible.”

Eventually, the night wears on, and the guests begin to leave. The stranger and Jo are the last to leave. The headless stranger drifts toward the door. His head nods to Abe and Jo before turning to Henry. When he opens his mouth, Henry suddenly realizes that the man hasn’t spoken to him yet. In fact, he hasn’t heard the man’s voice close up all evening.

“Good to see you again, Henry Morgan.” The voice is low and resonant—unmistakable. Of course.

Henry’s mouth hangs open in shock for the second time that night. Before he can recover enough to speak, the head grins, and the man walks out the door, and his headless form disappears into the pulsing glow of New York City at night.

Jo kneels and wipes something on the floor with her finger.

“As he was leaving, he dripped some of that fake blood on the floor. I wanted to see if I could tell what it was. Wow, he sure had an impressive costume.” She pauses, inspecting the tiny smear of red liquid on her finger. “Henry?” Her voice rises. “I don’t think this is fake blood.”

“No, it’s not,” he says without even looking.

“Um, shouldn’t we be concerned?”

“No. At least not for now.”

Jo is puzzled, but she figures Henry knows what he’s talking about. Henry and Abe exchange a lengthy glance before Abe shrugs and begins walking toward the other room.

“Eh,” Abe says, “What I’m worried about is getting that bloodstain out of my mother’s tablecloth.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my Tumblr page: http://alpacamyhedgehog.tumblr.com/post/101389532640/an-immortal-halloween
> 
> I am the original author of this work, and all rights to this fic belong to me.


End file.
